Getting a port?
China is doing to other nations what Britain and western powers did to China in the 19th century.
We shouldn’t be fooled by this neo-imperialism.
Sure. I get your point.
But that was then and this is now.
I still maintain that in the 20th century we have been far, FAR more generous with our aid and having fewer of the heavy-handed strings like the kind China attaches to theirs.
We were being naive spendthrifts trying to buy good will in many cases, but...China is playing for keeps.
Former European colonies will be shocked at how brutal a non-Western master can be; some European colonizers were horrible while others left them in state where they could have a smoother transition to independence, but Red China will be brutal.